Marsha West
Throwaway human beings
By Marsha West
In 2005 a nineteen-year old Canadian woman strangled her newborn baby and threw his tiny body over a fence. Twice a jury found her guilty of second-degree murder. Upon appeal the conviction was overturned and the baby's killer was given a three-year suspended sentence and will spend no time in jail. She may, however, spend 16 days behind bars for throwing the baby over the fence.
Does that not make your blood boil?
Evidently the Justice's blood remained tepid while she went about the business of suspending Katrina Effert's sentence. According to CBC News, Effert, "silently wept as Justice Joanne Veit outlined the reasons for the suspended sentence. Efferts will have to abide by conditions for the next three years but she won't spend time behind bars for strangling her own son." (Online source)
After all was said and done, Judge Veit declared, "Naturally, Canadians are grieved by an infant's death, especially at the hands of the infant's mother, but Canadians also grieve for the mother." (Ibid)
I'm not a Canadian but my good sense tells me that not many of them are grieving for the woman who strangled her newborn baby and got off with a slap on the wrist! Where is the justice for the baby boy whose life was cut short? Has the father of the baby received justice for the loss of his son? The baby also had grandparents. CBC News reported that the judge had no pity for them:
In her judgment, the judge rejected arguments from the Crown that the single father and the grandparent also face "the same stresses of the mind" as a mother who kills her own baby.
The fact that Canada has no abortion laws reflects that "while many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less than ideal solution to unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy, they generally understand, accept and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support," she writes.
So, was what Efferts did the justifiable act of a desperate woman or was it the killing of a legal person?
Columnist Mark Steyn opined:
[A] superior court judge in a relatively civilized jurisdiction is happy to extend the principles underlying legalized abortion in order to mitigate the killing of a legal person — that's to say, someone who has managed to make it to the post-fetus stage. How long do those mitigating factors apply? I mean, "onerous demands"-wise, the first month of a newborn's life is no picnic for the mother. How about six months in? The terrible twos?
Speaking of "onerous demands," suppose you're a "mother without support" who's also got an elderly relative around with an "onerous" chronic condition also making inroads into your time?
And in what sense was Miss Effert a "mother without support"? She lived at home with her parents, who provided her with food and shelter. How smoothly the slick euphemisms — "accept and sympathize . . . onerous demands" — lubricate the slippery slope. (Online source)
I don't have the slightest idea what went on in Katina Effert's mind on the day of the homicide. According to reports, she gave conflicting statements to police. Initially she blamed her boyfriend for the killing and she showed no remorse for her crime. During the trial two expert witnesses testified that she was suffering from a mental disturbance at the time of the homicide. The jury obviously didn't believe the experts and convicted her of second-degree murder — twice. In an effort to deter other mothers from doing the same thing, Effert received a mandatory minimum sentence of life with no parole for 10 years.
Many teenage girls find themselves pregnant. They're faced with telling the baby's father, who more often than not is also a teen and is in no way prepared for fatherhood. Even worse these girls must face their parents — or parent — with the news that their child is expecting a child of her own! Pregnant girls become frightened, depressed and desperate. In their desperation many young women resort to having an abortion — but many choose life for their unborn child instead. Some of them opt to keep the baby while others put him or her up for adoption. One thing's for certain. In this day and age it does not ruin a woman's life to give birth out of wedlock. In fact it's becoming the norm. So with all the options available to women it's unthinkable that Effert would carry her child to term, deliver him alone in her parents' basement then, when he began to cry, strangle the life out him with her thong underwear, wrap him in a towel, and walk down the path to the back fence and discarded him like a non-refundable container.
The sad fact is that there are people besides the judge who don't see what Effert did as all that bad because, for them, a human life is expendable if it causes someone inconvenience or hardship. Yet those same people go ballistic over dolphins accidentally getting caught in fisherman's nets or baby seals getting clubbed to death. Clubbing a baby seal to death is a heinous act. I bring this up because some people show outrage over the mistreatment of animals yet they could care less that innocent pre-born babies are ripped from their mother's wombs by abortionists!
The Bible tells us that humans are made in God's image. Dolphins and seals are not. As I pointed out in a piece I wrote titled America's all out spiritual battle:
Genesis 1:27 tells us that a loving God fashioned human beings in His own image. ...We are also created for His glory. (Isaiah 43:7) He has great love for humans. "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." (Eph 2: 4-10 NKJ). Jesus said of us, "the very hairs of your head are all numbered" (Mat. 10:30).
God does not cotton to humans destroying His workmanship — those He created and formed...His handiwork. So even if Katrina Effert had opted for an abortion, in God's eyes she'd be guilty of murder just the same. It doesn't matter to the Creator if some people believe abortion on demand is a woman's right... a private decision...her choice. The Bible says, "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD." (Job 1:21)
God is the giver of life and God decides when life ends. Period!
Some women have an abortion for "health reasons" and can choose to abort the baby in the third trimester of pregnancy. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as "any condition that might impact her physical, emotional, psychological or financial well being." You mean WHO says it's okay to kill a pre-born baby because it puts a financial burden on the mother? In America...in 2011? Yes, Emmylou, a woman has that "right."
Before you run down to the nearest Planned Parenthood for an abortion, keep in mind that having one can also impact a woman's emotional and psychological well being. It has that affect on men, too.
Something else you may not know is that, according to science, life begins at conception. So, pro-lifers must urge those who haven't gotten the message yet to take a look at the scientific evidence. For example, ultrasound technology proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that a tiny human person is growing inside a mother's womb. He/she is not developing into a person; he/she is already a person albeit an extremely small person, especially during the first-trimester. He/she is not a "blob of tissue" as many pro-aborts insist. Pro-aborts deliberately hide the fact that at10 weeks a fetus bends, stretches, opens and closes her hands, lifts her head, squints, swallows and wrinkles her forehead. More and more people now recognize that women who choose to have an abortion are signing a person's death warrant! Still, over 4,000 babies are killed in America every single day. The latest polls show that Americans are finally starting to come to their senses. According to a 2011 Gallup poll "By a 24% margin, 61-37 percent, Americans take the pro-life view that abortions should either be legal under no circumstances or legal only under a few circumstances."
The reason I bring up abortion is this. If Katrina Effert had chosen abortion right up to the day her baby was born I wouldn't be writing this piece because it would have been legal to kill him!
By offering excuses for Effert's actions the judge has taken Canadians down a very slippery slope. "Mark this well," warned Albert Mohler, "the horrific logic of this judge's decision will not remain in Canada. Indeed, it did not even start in Canada. Those arguments are already in place in the United States. If we will not defend life in the womb, eventually the dignity of every single human life is thrown over the fence."
It's not legal to kill a newborn in America — yet. In Canada, thanks to Judge Veit's ruling, there are now extenuating circumstances one being the "onerous demands" of pregnancy.
There is good news, though. The good news is that Katrina is not alone in her sin. "For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not." (Ecc. 7:20) But there's hope for sinners. 1 Peter 1:3 says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Death is the consequence of sin, Christ's' death and resurrection gives hope to anyone who repents of their sins, believes, and puts their trust in Him.
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus (Roman 3:23-26).
Recommended:
Fetal development 10 weeks
Abortion Truth
National Right to Life — Partial-birth abortion diagram
© Marsha West
September 29, 2011
In 2005 a nineteen-year old Canadian woman strangled her newborn baby and threw his tiny body over a fence. Twice a jury found her guilty of second-degree murder. Upon appeal the conviction was overturned and the baby's killer was given a three-year suspended sentence and will spend no time in jail. She may, however, spend 16 days behind bars for throwing the baby over the fence.
Does that not make your blood boil?
Evidently the Justice's blood remained tepid while she went about the business of suspending Katrina Effert's sentence. According to CBC News, Effert, "silently wept as Justice Joanne Veit outlined the reasons for the suspended sentence. Efferts will have to abide by conditions for the next three years but she won't spend time behind bars for strangling her own son." (Online source)
After all was said and done, Judge Veit declared, "Naturally, Canadians are grieved by an infant's death, especially at the hands of the infant's mother, but Canadians also grieve for the mother." (Ibid)
I'm not a Canadian but my good sense tells me that not many of them are grieving for the woman who strangled her newborn baby and got off with a slap on the wrist! Where is the justice for the baby boy whose life was cut short? Has the father of the baby received justice for the loss of his son? The baby also had grandparents. CBC News reported that the judge had no pity for them:
In her judgment, the judge rejected arguments from the Crown that the single father and the grandparent also face "the same stresses of the mind" as a mother who kills her own baby.
The fact that Canada has no abortion laws reflects that "while many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less than ideal solution to unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy, they generally understand, accept and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support," she writes.
So, was what Efferts did the justifiable act of a desperate woman or was it the killing of a legal person?
Columnist Mark Steyn opined:
[A] superior court judge in a relatively civilized jurisdiction is happy to extend the principles underlying legalized abortion in order to mitigate the killing of a legal person — that's to say, someone who has managed to make it to the post-fetus stage. How long do those mitigating factors apply? I mean, "onerous demands"-wise, the first month of a newborn's life is no picnic for the mother. How about six months in? The terrible twos?
Speaking of "onerous demands," suppose you're a "mother without support" who's also got an elderly relative around with an "onerous" chronic condition also making inroads into your time?
And in what sense was Miss Effert a "mother without support"? She lived at home with her parents, who provided her with food and shelter. How smoothly the slick euphemisms — "accept and sympathize . . . onerous demands" — lubricate the slippery slope. (Online source)
I don't have the slightest idea what went on in Katina Effert's mind on the day of the homicide. According to reports, she gave conflicting statements to police. Initially she blamed her boyfriend for the killing and she showed no remorse for her crime. During the trial two expert witnesses testified that she was suffering from a mental disturbance at the time of the homicide. The jury obviously didn't believe the experts and convicted her of second-degree murder — twice. In an effort to deter other mothers from doing the same thing, Effert received a mandatory minimum sentence of life with no parole for 10 years.
Many teenage girls find themselves pregnant. They're faced with telling the baby's father, who more often than not is also a teen and is in no way prepared for fatherhood. Even worse these girls must face their parents — or parent — with the news that their child is expecting a child of her own! Pregnant girls become frightened, depressed and desperate. In their desperation many young women resort to having an abortion — but many choose life for their unborn child instead. Some of them opt to keep the baby while others put him or her up for adoption. One thing's for certain. In this day and age it does not ruin a woman's life to give birth out of wedlock. In fact it's becoming the norm. So with all the options available to women it's unthinkable that Effert would carry her child to term, deliver him alone in her parents' basement then, when he began to cry, strangle the life out him with her thong underwear, wrap him in a towel, and walk down the path to the back fence and discarded him like a non-refundable container.
The sad fact is that there are people besides the judge who don't see what Effert did as all that bad because, for them, a human life is expendable if it causes someone inconvenience or hardship. Yet those same people go ballistic over dolphins accidentally getting caught in fisherman's nets or baby seals getting clubbed to death. Clubbing a baby seal to death is a heinous act. I bring this up because some people show outrage over the mistreatment of animals yet they could care less that innocent pre-born babies are ripped from their mother's wombs by abortionists!
The Bible tells us that humans are made in God's image. Dolphins and seals are not. As I pointed out in a piece I wrote titled America's all out spiritual battle:
Genesis 1:27 tells us that a loving God fashioned human beings in His own image. ...We are also created for His glory. (Isaiah 43:7) He has great love for humans. "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." (Eph 2: 4-10 NKJ). Jesus said of us, "the very hairs of your head are all numbered" (Mat. 10:30).
God does not cotton to humans destroying His workmanship — those He created and formed...His handiwork. So even if Katrina Effert had opted for an abortion, in God's eyes she'd be guilty of murder just the same. It doesn't matter to the Creator if some people believe abortion on demand is a woman's right... a private decision...her choice. The Bible says, "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD." (Job 1:21)
God is the giver of life and God decides when life ends. Period!
Some women have an abortion for "health reasons" and can choose to abort the baby in the third trimester of pregnancy. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as "any condition that might impact her physical, emotional, psychological or financial well being." You mean WHO says it's okay to kill a pre-born baby because it puts a financial burden on the mother? In America...in 2011? Yes, Emmylou, a woman has that "right."
Before you run down to the nearest Planned Parenthood for an abortion, keep in mind that having one can also impact a woman's emotional and psychological well being. It has that affect on men, too.
Something else you may not know is that, according to science, life begins at conception. So, pro-lifers must urge those who haven't gotten the message yet to take a look at the scientific evidence. For example, ultrasound technology proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that a tiny human person is growing inside a mother's womb. He/she is not developing into a person; he/she is already a person albeit an extremely small person, especially during the first-trimester. He/she is not a "blob of tissue" as many pro-aborts insist. Pro-aborts deliberately hide the fact that at10 weeks a fetus bends, stretches, opens and closes her hands, lifts her head, squints, swallows and wrinkles her forehead. More and more people now recognize that women who choose to have an abortion are signing a person's death warrant! Still, over 4,000 babies are killed in America every single day. The latest polls show that Americans are finally starting to come to their senses. According to a 2011 Gallup poll "By a 24% margin, 61-37 percent, Americans take the pro-life view that abortions should either be legal under no circumstances or legal only under a few circumstances."
The reason I bring up abortion is this. If Katrina Effert had chosen abortion right up to the day her baby was born I wouldn't be writing this piece because it would have been legal to kill him!
By offering excuses for Effert's actions the judge has taken Canadians down a very slippery slope. "Mark this well," warned Albert Mohler, "the horrific logic of this judge's decision will not remain in Canada. Indeed, it did not even start in Canada. Those arguments are already in place in the United States. If we will not defend life in the womb, eventually the dignity of every single human life is thrown over the fence."
It's not legal to kill a newborn in America — yet. In Canada, thanks to Judge Veit's ruling, there are now extenuating circumstances one being the "onerous demands" of pregnancy.
There is good news, though. The good news is that Katrina is not alone in her sin. "For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not." (Ecc. 7:20) But there's hope for sinners. 1 Peter 1:3 says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Death is the consequence of sin, Christ's' death and resurrection gives hope to anyone who repents of their sins, believes, and puts their trust in Him.
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus (Roman 3:23-26).
Recommended:
Fetal development 10 weeks
Abortion Truth
National Right to Life — Partial-birth abortion diagram
© Marsha West
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
